Archive for April 28th, 2007

Just back from a road trip/tour in the Midwest, where the fissures in the hide of our country’s body politic are most evident, I find that another Bush administration official has gone down for the best reason possible: consorting with hookers! Yay, hookers! My colleagues in the sex industry surround the White House and every fundamentalist mega-church in the land, poised to do their part. Hypocrites, beware!I had already planned to write about the Washington DC hookers because their madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, has lately been in the Bay Area news. She lives in Vallejo, even though she runs her service, “Pamela Martin and Associates,” out of the nation’s capitol. When she got busted, she engaged in the most entertaining bit of passive-aggressive courtroom theatre I’ve encountered in a while: “Oh, poor poor pitiful me, I am but a legitimate escort service operator, sworn to make sure that no politician will ever have to eat his dinner alone.” (Here, naturally, I paraphrase a little.) “But oh dear me, I have been falsely accused of running a herd-o-hookers; how shall I defend myself? My girls are not prostitutes; they would never, never fuck a politician, and if they did, I’d turn them in them myself.” (Not the most supportive madam on the block, Ms. Palfrey; working girls, this is the best reason I can imagine to go into business on your own.) “Oh dear, oh my, I have no money. Ooooh, I know! I’ll just sell the only asset I have, my lil’ black book.”

The judge stopped her, but not before she’d handed off a copy; hence last night’s news, that after the end-of-day news cycle (hoping to avoid the silver-sharp tongue of Keith Olbermann, no doubt), another White House resignation had been tendered.

Of the AIDS Czar. For appering in said Little Black Book.

Heh heh heh.

And what do you suppose this czar’s HIV prevention policy might be, given that he is the bureaucratic love child of W and Condoleeza? That’s right, class: abstinence unless you’re married, and fidelity to your spouse.

Randall Tobias, the hypocrite in question, is indeed married. Friends, you just can’t make this shit up.

Now, when I toiled in the vales of the sex industry I was blessed with far more supportive madams, and far less hypocritical clients. But whether a sex worker has a Cinderella tour, like I did, or has to put up with Haggards and Tobiases (and whomever else is ordering in at the White House — remember, someone over there likes butchy boys, if Jeff Gannon’s name appearing on the sign-in list is any indication), they are still engaged in the honorable work of distracting often-powerful men from doing even worse mischief than they already are.

Kudos to them! Who knows how many times ‘hos have saved the world?

And if anyone wonders why prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, consider this: It’s because happily-married mid-level White House officials with fetishes for dispensing nearly-useless sexual health advice that they don’t even believe but insist others parrot before they can get funds to save even one life — well, they deserve love too. Or blowjobs. Or prostate massage. Or whatever other obscure kinky thing they like that can get done in a $300 hour, with a tip if their professional condom tester looks anything like Ann Coulter.

(Yes, it’s somewhat revolting, I know, but if you kids really want to grow up to be sexologists like me, you must be able to watch videos of Karl Rove and Ann Coulter rimming each other. No, it comes with the territory; if you can’t do that, you have to find something else to be when you grow up.)

But I know that not what some of you are thinking; you’re thinking, “What might be worth $300 an hour? And is that taxpayer’s money?” (By the way, in my view three hundred is a pittance; considering where they work, those hookers should be getting hazard pay, just like our boys and girls in Fallujah.)

Well, I can’t speak to the source of the funds; usually they’re crisp twenties, freshly ironed by the ATM. But as to why the hourly fee is so high: Have you ever had to breathe in the stench of hypocrisy?

I am a writer, speaker, educator and activist with a doctorate in sexology. First as an organizer in the lesbian/gay community, where I helped found one of the first gay youth groups in the United States, and later in the emerging international bisexual community, as a sex worker and a practitioner of alternative sexualities, I typically teach and write from my own experience and that of my communities even as I reference academic thought on these subjects.